You are here

Index IDEA: Female board representation still lags

As the world celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8, we reflected on just how far the global workforce has come in terms of gender diversity.

Yet at the same time new data from global index provider FTSE Russell on gender diversity at the company board level underscores that further progress is warranted.

FTSE Russell recently examined female board representation for companies within the FTSE Developed Index, calculating a “Women on Boards,” or WoB, ratio to compare across countries. Interestingly, the analysis uncovered that more effort is needed across all countries to achieve gender equality at leadership levels, with the US and UK lagging behind other countries.

The US has an average WoB ratio of just 20%, in the bottom half of its developed market peers. And, in the UK, the WoB ratio was just 25%, lagging behind its European peer countries:

Steve Odland, president & CEO, Committee for Economic Development (CED)

Former chairman & CEO, Office Depot, Inc., and AutoZone, Inc.

“Gender diversity on corporate boards is a topic of great importance in the US and globally. As companies increase the number of women on boards, they are strengthening their effectiveness to connect with their many constituencies. Women make up a substantial portion of consumers, college graduates, employees, and wealth-holders, yet they lack a sufficient voice in providing input and guidance to the company about these constituencies. Companies are not fully leveraging today’s pool of human capital and are thus hurting their ability to compete effectively in the marketplace.”

“Gender diversity in corporate leadership continues to be an important topic for our investor clients. And as they are looking more closely at diversity as a success factor for companies, they are looking to us for more efficient and accurate ways to measure and compare across companies, sectors and countries. We recently introduced the new FTSE Women on Boards Leadership Index Series as a way to better address this need and put accurate measurement tools in the hands of our clients.”

On February 2, 2018, FTSE Russell launched the FTSE Women on Boards Leadership Index Series to help market participants better measure and integrate gender diversity into their investment considerations. Through a unique methodology, the index series uses a tilt (or stock weight adjustment) to integrate gender diversity and social impact as factors in the index weightings.

FTSE Russell® is a trading name of FTSE, Russell, FTSE TMX, MTS Next Limited, Mergent, FTSE FI and YB. “FTSE®”, “Russell®”, “FTSE Russell®”, “MTS®”, “FTSE TMX®”, “FTSE4Good®”, “ICB®”, “Mergent®” , “WorldBIG®”, “USBIG®”, “EuroBIG®”, “AusBIG®”, “The Yield Book®”, and all other trademarks and service marks used herein (whether registered or unregistered) are trademarks and/or service marks owned or licensed by the applicable member of the LSE Group or their respective licensors and are owned, or used under licence, by FTSE, Russell, MTSNext, FTSE TMX, Mergent, FTSE FI or YB.

All information is provided for information purposes only. All information and data contained in this publication is obtained by the LSE Group, from sources believed by it to be accurate and reliable. Because of the possibility of human and mechanical error as well as other factors, however, such information and data is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. No member of the LSE Group nor their respective directors, officers, employees, partners or licensors make any claim, prediction, warranty or representation whatsoever, expressly or impliedly, either as to the accuracy, timeliness, completeness, merchantability of any information or of results to be obtained from the use of the FTSE Russell Indexes or the fitness or suitability of the FTSE Russell Indexes for any particular purpose to which they might be put. Any representation of historical data accessible through FTSE Russell Indexes is provided for information purposes only and is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

No responsibility or liability can be accepted by any member of the LSE Group nor their respective directors, officers, employees, partners or licensors for (a) any loss or damage in whole or in part caused by, resulting from, or relating to any error (negligent or otherwise) or other circumstance involved in procuring, collecting, compiling, interpreting, analysing, editing, transcribing, transmitting, communicating or delivering any such information or data or from use of this document or links to this document or (b) any direct, indirect, special, consequential or incidental damages whatsoever, even if any member of the LSE Group is advised in advance of the possibility of such damages, resulting from the use of, or inability to use, such information.

No member of the LSE Group nor their respective directors, officers, employees, partners or licensors provide investment advice and nothing contained in this document or accessible through FTSE Russell Indexes, including statistical data and industry reports, should be taken as constituting financial or investment advice or a financial promotion.

No part of this information may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the applicable member of the LSE Group. Use and distribution of the LSE Group data requires a licence from FTSE, Russell, FTSE TMX, MTSNext, Mergent, FTSE FI, YB and/or their respective licensors.

Legal

"FTSE Russell" is a trading name of FTSE International Limited (“FTSE”) and Frank Russell Company (“Russell”) and their respective subsidiary undertakings, which are members of the London Stock Exchange Group plc group.

FTSE International Limited is a limited liability company registered in England and Wales under registered number 03108236 with its registered office at 10 Paternoster Square, London, England, EC4M 7LS. FTSE International Limited is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as a benchmark administrator. Frank Russell Company is a Washington corporation with offices at 1201 Third Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98101.

You are now leaving www.ftserussell.com

You are now leaving www.ftserussell.com to access a third party website. The link to the third party website has been provided for information purposes only and inclusion of this link does not imply any endorsement or approval from FTSE Russell. FTSE Russell shall not be responsible for the accuracy, lawfulness or content of any third party website or of subsequent links and does not make any representation whatsoever about the content of any third party website. FTSE Russell does not accept any liability, of any kind, to any person arising as a result of any loss or damage or indirectly from the use of any content on such third party website or subsequent links.